Description:
The initial conditions and relevant physics for the formation of the earliest galaxies are well specified in the concordance cosmology. Using ab initio cosmological Eulerian adaptive mesh refinement radiation hydrodynamical calculations, we discuss how very massive stars start the process of cosmological reionization. The models include non-equilibrium primordial gas chemistry and cooling processes and accurate radiation transport in the Case B approximation using adaptively ray traced photon packages, retaining the time derivative in the transport equation. Supernova feedback is modeled by thermal explosions triggered at parsec scales. All calculations resolve the local Jeans length by at least 16 grid cells at all times and as such cover a spatial dynamic range of {approx}10{sup 6}. These first sources of reionization are highly intermittent and anisotropic and first photoionize the small scales voids surrounding the halos they form in, rather than the dense filaments they are! embedded in. As the merging objects form larger, dwarf sized galaxies, the escape fraction of UV radiation decreases and the H II regions only break out on some sides of the galaxies making them even more anisotropic. In three cases, SN blast waves induce star formation in overdense regions that were formed earlier from ionization front instabilities. These stars form tens of parsecs away from the center of their parent DM halo. Approximately 5 ionizing photons are needed per sustained ionization when star formation in 10{sup 6} M{sub {circle_dot}} halos are dominant in the calculation. As the halos become larger than {approx}10{sup 7} M{sub {circle_dot}}, the ionizing photon escape fraction decreases, which in turn increases the number of photons per ionization to 15--50, in calculations with stellar feedback only. Supernova feedback in these more massive halos creates a more diffuse medium, allowing the stellar radiation to escape more easily and maintaining the ratio of 5 ionizing ...

Description:
The scientific belief that the universe evolves in time is one of the legacies of the theory of the Big Bang. The concept that the universe has an history started to attract the interest of cosmologists soon after the first formulation of the theory: already Gamow (1948; 1949) investigated how and when galaxies could have been formed in the context of the expanding Universe. However, the specific topic of the formation (and of the fate) of the first objects dates to two decades later, when no objects with metallicities as low as those predicted by primordial nucleosynthesis (Z {approx}&lt; 10{sup -10} {approx} 10{sup -8}Z{sub {circle_dot}}) were found. Such concerns were addressed in two seminal papers by Peebles & Dicke (1968; hereafter PD68) and by Doroshkevich, Zel'Dovich & Novikov (1967; hereafter DZN67), introducing the idea that some objects could have formed before the stars we presently observe. (1) Both PD68 and DZN67 suggest a mass of {approx} 10{sup 5} M{sub {circle_dot}} for the first generation of bound systems, based on the considerations on the cosmological Jeans length (Gamow 1948; Peebles 1965) and the possible shape of the power spectrum. (2) They point out the role of thermal instabilities in the formation of the proto-galactic bound object, and of the cooling of the gas inside it; in particular, PD68 introduces H{sub 2} cooling and chemistry in the calculations about the contraction of the gas. (3) Even if they do not specifically address the occurrence of fragmentation, these papers make two very different assumptions: PD68 assumes that the gas will fragment into ''normal'' stars to form globular clusters, while DZN67 assumes that fragmentation does not occur, and that a single ''super-star'' forms. (4) Finally, some feedback effects as considered (e.g. Peebles & Dicke considered the effects of supernovae). Today most of the research ...

Description:
Astrophysical relativistic flow problems require high resolution three-dimensional numerical simulations. In this paper, we describe a new parallel three-dimensional code for simulations of special relativistic hydrodynamics (SRHD) using both spatially and temporally structured adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). We used method of lines to discrete SRHD equations spatially and used a total variation diminishing (TVD) Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration. For spatial reconstruction, we have implemented piecewise linear method (PLM), piecewise parabolic method (PPM), third order convex essentially non-oscillatory (CENO) and third and fifth order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes. Flux is computed using either direct flux reconstruction or approximate Riemann solvers including HLL, modified Marquina flux, local Lax-Friedrichs flux formulas and HLLC. The AMR part of the code is built on top of the cosmological Eulerian AMR code enzo, which uses the Berger-Colella AMR algorithm and is parallel with dynamical load balancing using the widely available Message Passing Interface library. We discuss the coupling of the AMR framework with the relativistic solvers and show its performance on eleven test problems.

Description:
We study the buildup of magnetic fields during the formation of Population III star-forming regions, by conducting cosmological simulations from realistic initial conditions and varying the Jeans resolution. To investigate this in detail, we start simulations from identical initial conditions, mandating 16, 32 and 64 zones per Jeans length, and studied the variation in their magnetic field amplification. We find that, while compression results in some amplification, turbulent velocity fluctuations driven by the collapse can further amplify an initially weak seed field via dynamo action, provided there is sufficient numerical resolution to capture vortical motions (we find this requirement to be 64 zones per Jeans length, slightly larger than, but consistent with previous work run with more idealized collapse scenarios). We explore saturation of amplification of the magnetic field, which could potentially become dynamically important in subsequent, fully-resolved calculations. We have also identified a relatively surprising phenomena that is purely hydrodynamic: the higher-resolved simulations possess substantially different characteristics, including higher infall-velocity, increased temperatures inside 1000 AU, and decreased molecular hydrogen content in the innermost region. Furthermore, we find that disk formation is suppressed in higher-resolution calculations, at least at the times that we can follow the calculation. We discuss the effect this may have on the buildup of disks over the accretion history of the first clump to form as well as the potential for gravitational instabilities to develop and induce fragmentation.

Description:
Cosmic reionization progresses as HII regions form around sources of ionizing radiation. Their average size grows continuously until they percolate and complete reionization. We demonstrate how this typical growth can be calculated around the largest, biased sources of UV emission such as quasars by further developing an analytical model based on the excursion set formalism. This approach allows us to calculate the sizes and growth of the HII regions created by the progenitors of any dark matter halo of given mass and redshift with a minimum of free parameters. Statistical variations in the size of these pre-existing HII regions are an additional source of uncertainty in the determination of very high redshift quasar properties from their observed HII region sizes. We use this model to demonstrate that the transmission gaps seen in very high redshift quasars can be understood from the radiation of only their progenitors and associated clustered small galaxies. The fit requires the epoch of overlap to be at z = 5.8 {+-} 0.1. This interpretation makes the transmission gaps independent of the age of the quasars observed. If this interpretation were correct it would raise the prospects of using radio interferometers currently under construction to detect the epoch of reionization.

Description:
Using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) adaptive mesh refinement simulations, we study the formation and early evolution of disk galaxies with a magnetized interstellar medium. For a 10{sup 10} M{sub {circle_dot}} halo with initial NFW dark matter and gas profiles, we impose a uniform 10{sup -9} G magnetic field and follow its collapse, disk formation and evolution up to 1 Gyr. Comparing to a purely hydrodynamic simulation with the same initial condition, we find that a protogalactic field of this strength does not significantly influence the global disk properties. At the same time, the initial magnetic fields are quickly amplified by the differentially rotating turbulent disk. After the initial rapid amplification lasting {approx} 500 Myr, subsequent field amplification appears self-regulated. As a result, highly magnetized material begin to form above and below the disk. Interestingly, the field strengths in the self-regulated regime agrees well with the observed fields in the Milky Way galaxy both in the warm and the cold HI phase and do not change appreciably with time. Most of the cold phase shows a dispersion of order ten in the magnetic field strength. The global azimuthal magnetic fields reverse at different radii and the amplitude declines as a function of radius of the disk. By comparing the estimated star formation rate (SFR) in hydrodynamic and MHD simulations, we find that after the magnetic field strength saturates, magnetic forces provide further support in the cold gas and lead to a decline of the SFR.

Description:
The first stars, forming at redshifts z &gt; 15 in minihalos with M {approx} 10{sup 5-6} M{sub {circle_dot}} may leave behind remnant black holes, which could conceivably have been the 'seeds' for the supermassive black holes observed at z {approx}&lt; 7. We study remnant black hole growth through accretion, including for the first time the radiation emitted due to accretion, with adaptive mesh refinement cosmological radiation-hydrodynamical simulations. The effects of photo-ionization and heating dramatically affect the large-scale inflow, resulting in negligible mass growth. We compare cases with accretion luminosity included and neglected to show that accretion radiation drastically changes the environment within 100 pc of the black hole, increasing gas temperatures by an order of magnitude. Gas densities are reduced and further star formation in the same minihalo is prevented for the two hundred million years we followed. Without radiative feedback included most seed black holes do not gain mass as efficiently as has been hoped for in previous theories, implying that black hole remnants of Pop III stars in minihalos are not likely to be miniquasars. Most importantly, however, our calculations demonstrate that if these black holes are indeed accreting close to the Bondi-Hoyle rate with ten percent radiative efficiency they have a dramatic local effect in regulating star formation in the first galaxies. This suggests a novel mechanism for massive black hole formation - stellar-mass black holes may have suppressed fragmentation and star formation after falling into halos with virial temperatures {approx} 10{sup 4} K, facilitating intermediate mass black hole formation at their centers.

Description:
The first stars form in dark matter halos of masses {approx}10{sup 6}M{sub {circle_dot}} as suggested by an increasing number of numerical simulations. Radiation feedback from these stars expels most of the gas from their shallow potential well of their surrounding dark matter halos. We use cosmological adaptive mesh refinement simulations that include self-consistent Population III star formation and feedback to examine the properties of assembling early dwarf galaxies. Accurate radiative transport is modeled with adaptive ray tracing. We include supernova explosions and follow the metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium. The calculations focus on the formation of several dwarf galaxies and their progenitors. In these halos, baryon fractions in 10{sup 8} M{sub {circle_dot}} halos decrease by a factor of 2 with stellar feedback and by a factor of 3 with supernova explosions. We find that radiation feedback and supernova explosions increase gaseous spin parameters up to a factor of 4 and vary with time. Stellar feedback, supernova explosions, and H{sub 2} cooling create a complex, multi-phase interstellar medium whose densities and temperatures can span up to 6 orders of magnitude at a given radius. The pair-instability supernovae of Population III stars alone enrich the halos with virial temperatures of 10{sup 4} K to approximately 10{sup -3} of solar metallicity. We find that 40% of the heavy elements resides in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at the end of our calculations. The highest metallicity gas exists in supernova remnants and very dilute regions of the IGM.

Description:
Numerous cosmological hydrodynamic studies have addressed the formation of galaxies. Here we choose to study the first stages of galaxy formation, including non-equilibrium atomic primordial gas cooling, gravity and hydrodynamics. Using initial conditions appropriate for the concordance cosmological model of structure formation, we perform two adaptive mesh refinement simulations of {approx} 10{sup 8} M{sub {circle_dot}} galaxies at high redshift. The calculations resolve the Jeans length at all times with more than 16 cells and capture over 14 orders of magnitude in length scales. In both cases, the dense, 10{sup 5} solar mass, one parsec central regions are found to contract rapidly and have turbulent Mach numbers up to 4. Despite the ever decreasing Jeans length of the isothermal gas, we only find one site of fragmentation during the collapse. However, rotational secular bar instabilities transport angular momentum outwards in the central parsec as the gas continues to collapse and lead to multiple nested unstable fragments with decreasing masses down to sub-Jupiter mass scales. Although these numerical experiments neglect star formation and feedback, they clearly highlight the physics of turbulence in gravitationally collapsing gas. The angular momentum segregation seen in our calculations plays an important role in theories that form supermassive black holes from gaseous collapse.

Description:
We discuss a new algorithm to generate multi-scale initial conditions with multiple levels of refinements for cosmological 'zoom-in' simulations. The method uses an adaptive convolution of Gaussian white noise with a real-space transfer function kernel together with an adaptive multi-grid Poisson solver to generate displacements and velocities following first- (1LPT) or second-order Lagrangian perturbation theory (2LPT). The new algorithm achieves rms relative errors of the order of 10{sup -4} for displacements and velocities in the refinement region and thus improves in terms of errors by about two orders of magnitude over previous approaches. In addition, errors are localized at coarse-fine boundaries and do not suffer from Fourier-space-induced interference ringing. An optional hybrid multi-grid and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) based scheme is introduced which has identical Fourier-space behaviour as traditional approaches. Using a suite of re-simulations of a galaxy cluster halo our real-space-based approach is found to reproduce correlation functions, density profiles, key halo properties and subhalo abundances with per cent level accuracy. Finally, we generalize our approach for two-component baryon and dark-matter simulations and demonstrate that the power spectrum evolution is in excellent agreement with linear perturbation theory. For initial baryon density fields, it is suggested to use the local Lagrangian approximation in order to generate a density field for mesh-based codes that is consistent with the Lagrangian perturbation theory instead of the current practice of using the Eulerian linearly scaled densities.

Description:
The concordance model of cosmology and structure formation predicts the formation of isolated very massive stars at high redshifts in dark matter dominated halos of 10{sup 5} to 10{sup 6} Msun. These stars photo-ionize their host primordial molecular clouds, expelling all the baryons from their halos. When the stars die, a relic H II region is formed within which large amounts of molecular hydrogen form which will allow the gas to cool efficiently when gravity assembles it into larger dark matter halos. The filaments surrounding the first star hosting halo are largely shielded and provide the pathway for gas to stream into the halo when the star has died. We present the first fully three dimensional cosmological radiation hydrodynamical simulations that follow all these effects. A novel adaptive ray casting technique incorporates the time dependent radiative transfer around point sources. This approach is fast enough so that radiation transport, kinetic rate equations, and hydrodynamics are solved self-consistently. It retains the time derivative of the transfer equation and is explicitly photon conserving. This method is integrated with the cosmological adaptive mesh refinement code enzo, and runs on distributed and shared memory parallel architectures. Where applicable the three dimensional calculation not only confirm expectations from earlier one dimensional results but also illustrate the multi-fold hydrodynamic complexities of H II regions. In the absence of stellar winds the circumstellar environments of the first supernovae and putative early gamma-ray bursts will be of low density {approx}1 cm{sup -3}. Albeit marginally resolved, ionization front instabilities lead to cometary and elephant trunk like small scale structures reminiscent of nearby star forming regions.

Description:
We present results of combined N-body and three-dimensional reionization calculations to determine the relationship between reionization history and local environment in a volume 1 Gpc h{sup -1} across and a resolution of about 1 Mpc. We resolve the formation of about 2 x 10{sup 6} halos of mass greater than {approx} 10{sup 12} M{sub {circle_dot}} at z = 0, allowing us to determine the relationship between halo mass and reionization epoch for galaxies and clusters. For our fiducial reionization model, in which reionization begins at z {approx} 15 and ends by z {approx} 6, we find a strong bias for cluster-size halos to be in the regions which reionized first, at redshifts 10 &lt; z &lt; 15. Consequently, material in clusters was reionized within relatively small regions, on the order of a few Mpc, implying that all clusters in our calculation were reionized by their own progenitors. Milky Way mass halos were on average reionized later and by larger regions, with a distribution most similar to the global one, indicating that low mass halos are nearly uncorrelated with reionization when only their mass is taken as a prior. On average, we find that most halos with mass less than 10{sup 13} M{sub {circle_dot}} were reionized internally, while almost all halos with masses greater than 10{sup 14} M{sub {circle_dot}} were reionized by their own progenitors. We briefly discuss the implications of this work in light of the 'missing satellites' problem and how this new approach may be extended further.

Description:
Previous high resolution cosmological simulations predict the first stars to appear in the early universe to be very massive and to form in isolation. Here we discuss a cosmological simulation in which the central 50M{sub {circle_dot}} clump breaks up into two cores, having a mass ratio of two to one, with one fragment collapsing to densities of 10{sup -8}g cm{sup -3}. The second fragment, at a distance of {approx}800 astronomical units, is also optically thick to its own cooling radiation from molecular hydrogen lines, but is still able to cool via collision-induced emission. The two dense peaks will continue to accrete from the surrounding cold gas reservoir over a period of {approx} 10{sup 5} years and will likely form a binary star system.

Description:
We discuss an analytic approach for modeling structure formation in sheets, filaments and knots. This is accomplished by combining models of triaxial collapse with the excursion set approach: sheets are defined as objects which have collapsed along only one axis, filaments have collapsed along two axes, and halos are objects in which triaxial collapse is complete. In the simplest version of this approach, which we develop here, large scale structure shows a clear hierarchy of morphologies: the mass in large-scale sheets is partitioned up among lower mass filaments, which themselves are made-up of still lower mass halos. Our approach provides analytic estimates of the mass fraction in sheets, filaments and halos, and its evolution, for any background cosmological model and any initial fluctuation spectrum. In the currently popular {Lambda}CDM model, our analysis suggests that more than 99% of the mass in sheets, and 72% of the mass in filaments, is stored in objects more massive than 10{sup 10}M{sub {circle_dot}} at the present time. For halos, this number is only 46%. Our approach also provides analytic estimates of how halo abundances at any given time correlate with the morphology of the surrounding large-scale structure, and how halo evolution correlates with the morphology of large scale structure.

Description:
Primordial stars are formed from a chemically pristine gas consisting of hydrogen and helium. They are believed to have been born at some early epoch in the history of the Universe and to have enriched the interstellar medium with synthesized heavy elements before the emergence of ordinary stellar populations. We study the formation of the first generation of stars in the standard cold dark matter model. We follow the gravitational collapse and thermal evolution of primordial gas clouds within early cosmic structures using very high-resolution, cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. Our simulation achieves a dynamic range of {approx} 10{sup 10} in length scale. With accurate treatment of atomic and molecular physics, it allows us to study the chemo-thermal evolution of primordial gas clouds to densities up to {rho} {approx} 2 x 10{sup -8}g cm{sup -3} (n{sub H} {approx} 10{sup 16}cm{sup -3}) without assuming any a priori equation of state; a six orders of magnitudes improvement over previous three-dimensional calculations. We implement an extensive chemistry network for hydrogen, helium and deuterium. All the relevant atomic and molecular cooling and heating processes, including cooling by collision-induced continuum emission, are implemented. For calculating optically thick H{sub 2} cooling at high densities, we use the Sobolev method (Sobolev 1960) and evaluate the molecular line opacities for a few hundred lines. We validate the accuracy of the method by performing a spherical collapse test and comparing the results with those of accurate one-dimensional calculations that treat the line radiative transfer problem in a fully self-consistent manner. We then perform a cosmological simulation adopting the standard {Lambda}CDM model. Dense gas clumps are formed at the centers of low mass ({approx} 10{sup 5-6}M{sub {circle_dot}}) dark matter halos at redshifts z {approx} 20, and they collapse gravitationally when the cloud mass exceeds a few hundred solar masses. To examine possible ...

Description:
In hierarchical structure formation, merging of galaxies is frequent and known to dramatically affect their properties. To comprehend these interactions high-resolution simulations are indispensable because of the nonlinear coupling between pc and Mpc scales. To this end, we present the first adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) simulation of two merging, low mass, initially gas-rich galaxies (1.8 x 10{sup 10} M{sub {circle_dot}} each), including star formation and feedback. With galaxies resolved by {approx} 2 x 10{sup 7} total computational elements, we achieve unprecedented resolution of the multiphase interstellar medium, finding a widespread starburst in the merging galaxies via shock-induced star formation. The high dynamic range of AMR also allows us to follow the interplay between the galaxies and their embedding medium depicting how galactic outflows and a hot metal-rich halo form. These results demonstrate that AMR provides a powerful tool in understanding interacting galaxies.

Description:
Understanding how seed black holes grow into intermediate and supermassive black holes (IMBHs and SMBHs, respectively) has important implications for the duty-cycle of active galactic nuclei (AGN), galaxy evolution, and gravitational wave astronomy. Most studies of the cosmological growth and merger history of black holes have used semianalytic models and have concentrated on SMBH growth in luminous galaxies. Using high resolution cosmological N-body simulations, we track the assembly of black holes over a large range of final masses - from seed black holes to SMBHs - over widely varying dynamical histories. We used the dynamics of dark matter halos to track the evolution of seed black holes in three different gas accretion scenarios. We have found that growth of a Sagittarius A* - size SMBH reaches its maximum mass M{sub SMBH}={approx}10{sup 6}M{sub {circle_dot}} at z{approx}6 through early gaseous accretion episodes, after which it stays at near constant mass. At the same redshift, the duty-cycle of the host AGN ends, hence redshift z=6 marks the transition from an AGN to a starburst galaxy which eventually becomes the Milky Way. By tracking black hole growth as a function of time and mass, we estimate that the IMBH merger rate reaches a maximum of R{sub max}=55 yr{sup -1} at z=11. From IMBH merger rates we calculate N{sub ULX}=7 per Milky Way type galaxy per redshift in redshift range 2 {approx}&lt; z {approx}&lt; 6.

Description:
We use the publicly available subhalo catalogs from the via Lactea simulation along with a Gpc-scale N-body simulation to understand the impact of inhomogeneous reionization on the satellite galaxy population of the Milky Way. The large-volume simulation is combined with a model for reionization that allows us to predict the distribution of reionization times for Milky Way mass halos. Motivated by this distribution, we identify candidate satellite galaxies in the simulation by requiring that any subhalo must grow above a specified mass threshold before it is reionized; after this time the photoionizing background will suppress both the formation of stars and the accretion of gas. We show that varying the reionization time over the range expected for Milky Way mass halos can change the number of satellite galaxies by roughly two orders of magnitude. This conclusion is in contradiction with a number of studies in the literature, and we conclude that this is a result of inconsistent application of the results of Gnedin (2000); subtle changes in the assumptions about how reionization affects star formation in small galaxies can lead to large changes in the effect of changing the reionization time on the number of satellites. We compare our satellite galaxies to observations using both abundance matching and stellar population synthesis methods to assign luminosities to our subhalos and account for observational completeness effects. Additionally, if we assume that the mass threshold is set by the virial temperature T{sub vir} = 8 x 10{sup 3} K we find that our model accurately matches the vmax distribution, radial distribution, and luminosity function of observed Milky Way satellites for a reionization time z{sub reion} = 9.6{sub -2.1}{sup 1.0}, assuming that the via Lactea subhalo distribution is representative of the Milky Way. This results in the presence of 119{sub -50}{sup +202} satellite galaxies.

Description:
The transformation of atomic hydrogen to molecular hydrogen through three-body reactions is a crucial stage in the collapse of primordial, metal-free halos, where the first generation of stars (Population III stars) in the Universe are formed. However, in the published literature, the rate coefficient for this reaction is uncertain by nearly an order of magnitude. We report on the results of both adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of the collapse of metal-free halos as a function of the value of this rate coefficient. For each simulation method, we have simulated a single halo three times, using three different values of the rate coefficient. We find that while variation between halo realizations may be greater than that caused by the three-body rate coefficient being used, both the accretion physics onto Population III protostars as well as the long-term stability of the disk and any potential fragmentation may depend strongly on this rate coefficient.

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